Michigan International Speedway celebrates 50 years

Matt Sisoler Daily Telegram Sports Writer @lenaweesisoler

Friday

Jun 8, 2018 at 2:00 PM

The NASCAR racetrack in Brooklynn hosted its first motorsports race on Oct. 13, 1968.

BROOKLYN — This weekend, the nation of NASCAR comes together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first races at Michigan International Speedway, which hosted its first-ever motorsports race October 13, 1968.

From the first race in what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series that saw a crash on the final lap decide the winner, all the way to Kyle Larson’s current three-race win streak and everywhere in between, MIS has been one of the most exciting tracks for NASCAR and open-wheel racing in the nation, while fostering a love of racing among its fans.

“The spirit here amongst the team, there’s a lot of passion in the people that work here, for the place, for the fans, for everybody,” said MIS president Rick Brenner, “so I think that sort of transcends and everybody gets that. They feel that when you come here as a guest. You feel how much we care and have always cared.”

THE BEGINNING

MIS owes its existence to a couple of men, starting with real estate developer Lawrence LoPatin from Detroit.

Mark LoPatin, Lawrence LoPatin’s son, recalled how his father, who was involved with the Windsor Raceway in Ontario, was looking to bring an auto racing track to Michigan.

This was due to the Windsor track’s board not wanting to have an auto racing track there and to the fact that the state that housed the big three automakers (Chrysler, Ford, General Motors) did not have a high-speed track.

After a couple of failed attempts to get the track built in other areas of Michigan, Lawrence LoPatin was approached by a group from the Irish Hills who convinced him to bring the track to the area, eventually settling on the current site on the line of Lenawee and Jackson counties.

Mark LoPatin went on scouting trips with his father and Charles Moneypenny, the man who designed Daytona International Speedway, to several tracks to study them in preparation for building what would become MIS.

“No. 1, he wanted a track where people could see the cars, hopefully, go around the entire oval,” Mark LoPatin said. “Second, many times the track really had only one groove, so you had to pass on the straightaways and tuck behind the car if you didn’t make the pass to get into the turn. You just couldn’t go around the Turn 2 or certainly 3 abreast.

“With Michigan, that was designed so that you could (pass in the turns). You would have races where guys would go around turns three abreast, one atop of each other, trying to pass. ... They wanted the track to be a spectator experience. It wasn’t just about the cars, and it wasn’t just about the drivers.”

Lawrence LoPatin built a D-shaped oval with 18-degree banking that had seating for 25,000 spectators and included a road course. The total cost was between $4 and $6 million.

STARTING THEIR ENGINES

Michigan native Gordon Johncock, who won five races at MIS (four open-wheel and one International Race of Champions) and two Indianapolis 500s during his career, was one of the first drivers to test MIS and remembers being struck by the nature of the brand-new track.

“I really liked it, because it was a high-speed track,” said Johncock. “It was wide, high banked, and I guess one of the big thrills was that it was the first track that I was ever able to hold the car wide open and not back out of the throttle.”

The first-ever race at MIS was a USAC Champ Car Series race on Oct. 13, 1968. Ronnie Bucknum was the first driver to take the checkered flag, leading 35 of the 125 laps and finishing a lap ahead of Mario Andretti, according to racing-reference.info.

The opening race for what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series was held just over eight months later, on June 15, 1969. Cale Yarborough, who has the second most wins at MIS (eight) in Cup competition, took home the victory after leading 38 of 250 laps, He crossed the line ahead of David Pearson and Richard Petty, according to racing-reference.info.

CHANGE OF OWNERS

Despite the track’s success, the other tracks that LoPatin’s company, American Raceways, Inc., owned were losing money and eventually forced the company into bankruptcy and finally receivership in 1972, according to the MIS website.

Motorsport icon Roger Penske saw MIS’ potential and purchased the track and its surrounding land for around $2 million in 1973.

Penske poured money into upgrading MIS into a top-notch circuit, several times upgrading the grandstands and other facilities on the track, spending millions of dollars on the improvements.

The pits received an expansion and three new garages, along with an administration building and a tire building, among others.

But the biggest improvement was the grandstands.

Penske multiplied Michigan’s initial seating capacity by five, increasing the capacity to 125,000, while still maintaining the ability for fans to see the action all the way around the two-mile oval.

Penske’s company that owned Michigan and several other race tracks was bought in 1999 by International Speedway Corporation, founded by Bill France, who also founded NASCAR and built Daytona.

ISC continued the work that both Lawrence LoPatin and Penske had worked on for the first 31 years of MIS’ existence, continuing to upgrade the track and its facilities, including the building of a brand-new media center.

GROWING POPULARITY

Faster cars, coupled with the fact that MIS is so wide that drivers can stay on the gas for the entire lap, meant top speeds at MIS began to rival the speeds at the bigger superspeedways once restrictor plates began seeing regular use.

Faster racing caused fans to flock to the track, despite the IndyCar series departing Michigan after the 2007 season.

Since 2000, the nine fastest qualifying laps in the Cup Series have occurred at MIS, led by Jeff Gordon’s 206.558 mph lap for the August 2014 race, according to ESPN.com.

In addition to the speeds and the views, Mark LoPatin believes it’s also the fact that fans have embraced the track as their own that has kept MIS popular.

“ What was really striking, and I didn’t know, was that people get married at (MIS),” LoPatin said. “There are very few opportunities any of us have to have something so significant that people would feel a connection that they wanted to get married at the track. They met at the track, their first date was at the track, they fell in love at the track.

“Whatever it was, something about something my father had created has had an impact on these people’s lives.”

ON THE HOME TRACK

Having a track in Michigan that annually hosts NASCAR’s best has encouraged kids who grew up watching races to get into racing more, with the most well-known successes emerging in the past 15 years.

Grand Rapids native Johnny Benson Jr. has one of three victories for Michigan-born racers across NASCAR, taking the Truck Series race in June 2006. He finished his career with 18 wins across NASCAR’s top three series, along with the 2008 Truck Series championship.

Metamora’s Vinnie Miller, who drives the No. 01 Chevrolet Camaro for JD Motorsports in the Xfinity Series will make his NASCAR Michigan debut in the Xfinity Series LTi Printing 250 on Saturday after running the ARCA Series race last year.

“If I could get the win this weekend, I would just be speechless,” said Miller. “…It would be my first time racing at home in a NASCAR series. It would just mean the world to me.”

Rochester Hills native Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Ford Fusion for Penske Racing, has the other two wins by Michiganders at MIS in NASCAR competition, winning then-Nationwide Series races in 2009 and 2010 and is the only Michigander to be a Cup Series champion, winning in 2012.

Keselowski’s father, Bob Keselowski, is one of three Michiganders, along with Tracy Leslie and Tim Steele, to win an ARCA Series race at MIS, winning in 1992.

Byron native Erik Jones, who helms the No. 20 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing, has always run well at MIS, perhaps no better than in last August’s Pure Michigan 400.

After running up front for most of the race, Jones started alongside then teammate and current defending Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. for an overtime restart after a late caution, only for Kyle Larson to split the Toyotas and win his third straight MIS race. Jones, who led five laps on the afternoon, took third.

“Running in the Cup Series at Michigan and having a shot to win,” Jones said, “it’s what I dreamed of and what I wanted to do, and to have it unfold in front of me was one of my biggest memories.”

It will be up to Brad Keselowski, Jones and Miller to crown MIS’ 50th anniversary celebration weekend in the best possible way: with a home-state victory or a pair of home-state victories at a track that has seen more than a lifetime of memories made on its grounds, dating all the way back to that first race in October 1968.

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